TheCable

FOLORUNSHO HAMSAT

It is rather incomprehensible that the Christian world is often selective about what it believes from the Bible. Scripture states that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and that a loving God sent His Son to die for the sins of the world (John 3:16). Jesus taught that we should love God, our neighbours and even our enemies (Matthew 5:44;22:36–40). For centuries, these noble teachings have been embraced, but curiously, they are not always followed, especially by professing Christians.

However, this same God also sent prophets to warn His chosen people and the world that serious consequences would result if His instructions were ignored and His laws were violated (see Deuteronomy 28). Strangely, though, this crucial aspect of biblical teaching has never been popular. Most of the warnings God sent through His prophets went unheeded, and millions suffered terrible consequences as a result.

I have gone to this length as regards a statement issued by five deputy governors in Nigeria led by Ebonyi state deputy governor, Mr. Kelechi Igwe, in reaction to the honest spiritual warning released to them by a famous Lagos based prophet, Primate Babatunde Elijah Ayodele. While this account is not planned to chastise the five deputy governors’ rights to challenge any subject that they consider unfriendly, and I do not think the Man of God himself would be at leisure to react to this public infamy, it should, however, be understood that giving prophecies through His anointed servants is consistent with the actions of a loving God. I would at this stage beg the reader’s indulgence to share as illustration, the situation of the Israelites of old and the experience of Noah’s era as captured in the sacred writings of the Old and New Testaments.

Before sending the flood that submerged the people of the ‘previous world’, God sent Noah, a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), to warn his people of what was coming. It is understood that Noah’s warning message as given to him by God, lasted approximately 100 years (Genesis 5:32; 7:6). Even though God provided a warning for nearly a century, only Noah and his family of just eight people heeded the message and got saved while everyone else ignored him until it was too late, hence they perished in the flood. The Holy Bible (Amos 3:7) says: “Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.” Following the misfortune of the Noah’s people, God in later years chose to work with the nation of Israel.

He blessed the Israelites and gave them His laws so they could be an example to the world (Deuteronomy 4:1–8). However, just like the rebellious, independent-minded people that many are, even today, the Israelites ignored God; castigated His prophets who were sent out of concern for them (Jeremiah 7:22–26). Instead of heeding God’s warnings, the Israelites ignored, mocked, persecuted and even murdered God’s prophets. One of the prophets sent to them, Isaiah, was told: “Do not prophesy to us right things (that are uncomfortable truths), speak to us smooth things” (Isaiah 30:10). He was killed thereafter. Many others before and after Isaiah, were either killed or kidnapped just because they dared to deliver God’s warnings to their people. Therefore, as a result of violating His laws and despising His prophets, the nations of Israel and Judah lost God’s protection; they were conquered by their enemies and were carried into captivity to Assyria and Babylon. They paid a heavy price for failing to heedwarnings from God.

It then beats logic and reasoning that these deputy governors who ordinarily ought to have seized the opportunity of God’s message sent through Primate Ayodele to improve on the present status of the bond with their principals rather unwisely wasted the chance to mock God by turning His message to a market square joke. May we repeat to our dear deputy governors that the initiative in making a prophet always rests with God? And it is not a ministry that anyone can just take up. Prophets are ambassadors, speaking and acting on behalf of a peculiar nation not belonging to this world. So, that they are seldom welcomed in an offensive society, is a written truth supported by the Scripture.

Primate Ayodele is another true prophet of God, and his likes are rarely accepted. I will not encourage a God’s servant like him to be tenacious in craving for recognition by the inflexibly disobedient crowd because to do that will mean disarming him of the custody of the sacred trust and then lock him eternally into the system that he is originally sent to confront.

Over the years, I have followed with interest Ayodele’s prophecies majority of which came to pass and duly adjudged globally.

Some of the situations which further confirmed my interest in Ayodele’s prophecies include the one in Sunday Sun of December 28, 2014, where he said that Nigeria will buy petrol for 150 in 2015. Today, petrol is sold at N145 per litre. It is in that same paper that he said the Republican Party in America will take over from Obama as the president of America in the 2016 election. This came to pass.

On page 54 of Sunday Tribune of January 4, 2015, Ayodele said “I don’t see stable power supply till 2016. Today electricity supply is still epileptic in Nigeria. He also said in that same Sunday Tribune he foresaw unrest and protests in America (after the election). On page 49 of Global Excellence of December 20, 2012, before the former Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, was removed from office, Ayodele warned that “The then CBN governor Sanusi Lamido will be rubbished.”

The Primate in the 2015/2016 edition of his prophecy handbook, Warnings to the Nations, he warned that “France should be careful of killings and terror attacks.” His warning was confirmed later. In the same handbook, he said in a series of prophecies that “I foresee an impending attack on Somalia, a den of kidnappers will be discovered in Oyo,  United States of America must pray against natural disaster, Yobe state should pray against explosions and attacks, the government will re-strategize on how to get the Chibok girls, Indonesia needs prayers so that they will not experience natural disaster, all of which were fulfilled. And on the Goodluck Jonathan aspect which the deputy governors perhaps ignorantly inferred in their public odium did not come to fulfilment, I would enjoin them to revisit The Guardian of Saturday, July 13, 2013 on page 13. There Ayodele says simply, “Jonathan will not win in 2015”. It is in the same he prophesied in an online newspaper, The Defender October 11, 2016, that “Hillary Clinton must work on some states in order to record success.”

In conclusion, I would plead with Kelechi Igwe and his co-travelers to stop seeing divine prophecies in the same manner as stories that one gets to read in news mediums at every occasion. Anyone who has no respect for God’s anointed prophets cannot lead successfully in any field. As a matter of fact, not respecting divine messages forms the bedrock of crises Nigeria is facing at this time. People, especially Nigerians, should learn to draw a line between politics and spiritual matters.